Steenz and Bianca Xunise have entered a field that has long overlooked the voices of African American women.

New York humorist Jason Chatfield chronicled his experience with the illness, from symptoms to recovery.

Darth Maul could have saved the galaxy in 'Star Wars: The Clone Wars," and lived on in the movies. Neither happened.

The vice president's visit inspired reactions from cartoonists on both sides of the political aisle.

Submit your visual art here. We'll publish some of the submissions.

Some cartoonists try to deliver a political shock. Others want to deliver levity in this trying time.

Domino's plans to start delivering pizzas using an autonomous, unmanned vehicle. The announcement is the latest example of technology companies using robots to deliver food.

A team of researchers from Dartmouth say they’ve created a mobile sensing system — consisting of fitness bracelets, sensors and a custom app — that can measure employee performance with about 80 percent accuracy.

For the past few months, the nation’s largest employer has begun evaluating workers using an experimental tool: virtual reality.

After nearly eight months of knowledge-gathering street tests and thousands of successful deliveries, Amazon has announced that its delivery robots have begun delivering packages to customers in Irvine, Calif.

If all goes according to plan, future generations will be able to interact with departed relatives using mobile devices or virtual assistants such as Amazon’s Alexa, asking the deceased questions, eliciting stories and drawing upon a lifetime’s worth of advice long after their physical body is gone.

A Canadian grocery chain says its introducing a fleet of intelligent grocery carts that scan and weigh products as customers place them in the cart.

As fires tear across California, a Silicon Valley technology company believes artificial intelligence could be the key to preventing them in the future.

Walmart, the nation's largest employer, announced a partnership with Nuro, a Silicon Valley startup called this week. The two companies will begin delivering groceries to customers in Houston this year using autonomous vehicles.

Garoppolo was forced to leave the game against the Chiefs after taking a hit in the fourth quarter.

The Vikings will face off against the 3-0 Los Angeles Rams, which normally would trigger an automatic sit for any passing attack, but the Rams, on short rest, will be without cornerbacks Aqib Talib and Marcus Peters.

Smith has lived up to expectations in 2018, completing 66 of 96 passes (career-high 69 percent) for 767 yards, four touchdowns and one interception.

Prescott's touchdown rate is down and his interception rate is up for the second straight season.

Michel will face a Chicago Bears defense that stops opposing rushers a league-low 13 percent of the time.

Thomas and the Saints will have to contend with a Vikings defense that has limited No. 1 receivers to an average of 53 yards per game.

Accelerate, the 5-2 favorite in the final Breeders' Cup Classic future wagering pool, is coming off a big win as the 3-10 favorite in the Awesome Again Stakes at Saratoga. But should you bet him?

Six teams are on a bye this week, giving stars like Saquon Barkley, Odell Beckham Jr., Andrew Luck, Zach Ertz and A.J. Green the week off. Here are three players that could have big games in their stead.

It's a bad week to own a Washington skill position player, but a great time to get Tevin Coleman and other into your lineup.

Washington will be without their starting right guard, right tackle, left guard, left tackle, center and starting quarterback on Sunday, making the Dallas defense a very solid pickup.

The running back situation in Philadelphia is gaining clarity, and the starter is available in more than a third of fantasy leagues.

If you were relying on Jaguars running back Leonard Fournette to help you this week you’re going to need a back up plan.

Cousins's next opponent, the Seattle Seahawks, has been kind to fantasy quarterbacks of late, surrendering at least 21 fantasy points in each of the last four contests.

It's never easy benching star players who are in less-than-ideal situations but it is often the right thing to do.

The Patriots quarterback has been sensational for years, but with everything on the line for your fantasy season in Week 16, he's a liability.

• Colombian delivery app Rappi is testing pilot robot deliveries in Colombia.
• Rappi operates in several Latin American countries, and last year SoftBank invested one billion dollars into the startup.
• Deliveries are made using Kiwibot, a delivery robot from a Colombian owned company in California.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Colombian delivery app Rappi is yet another company turning to robots to reduce reliance on human workers during the coronavirus pandemic. 

In addition to Colombia, Rappi operates in Mexico, Peru, Chile, Uruguay, Argentina, and Brazil. Last spring, SoftBank invested $1 billion — one-fifth of its Innovation Fund for Latin America — in the startup. It was founded in 2015, and other investors include Sequoia Capital, Andreesen Horowitz, and Y Combinator.

Colombia is currently under a lockdown set to end in May, though it may be extended again. Earlier this month, Bloomberg reported on the lack of coronavirus testing throughout Latin America, making it difficult to assess how widespread the virus is in the region.

Like in other countries, the Colombian delivery app is using robots to complete orders at a time when people are at risk of catching the virus from interacting with others. So far, the robots are part of a pilot in Medellin, with potential to expand.

Here's what it looks like. 

SEE ALSO: Nonprofits, truck drivers, food banks, and others are turning to a little-known Google Maps feature to navigate life amid the coronavirus pandemic

Rappi is using robots for deliveries in Medellin, the capital of Colombia.

Typically, Rappi works similarly to GrubHub or DoorDash, with delivery drivers picking up orders and bringing them to customers' doors.

As the coronavirus spread between people, options for contactless delivery became more popular.

Deliveries in the pilot program use Kiwibot robots, from a California company with a Medellin office.

The four-wheeled delivery robots have orange flags to call attention from walkers, drivers, and bikers.

Customers stuck at home because of the coronavirus can order and pay for meals digitally, and then last mile delivery is completed by the robots.

Robots can carry deliveries up to five square inches in size, and are disinfected between orders.

Source: The Star

Kiwibots have a stereo camera system to sense its surroundings as it moves.

The sensor system allows it to react to lights and obstacles.

Kiwibots are equipped with corner recognition, which allows them to create safe paths on sidewalks.

Kiwibot emphasized its robots ability to "seamlessly mesh into the fabric of urban landscapes," with technology like street crossing mode.

Source: Kiwibot

Rappi says it completes about 120 deliveries each day with the 15 robots in the pilot area.

Source: The Star

It plans to run the program until July, and then potentially expand to other cities.

Kiwibots have previously been used for deliveries at colleges including UC Berkeley, and Kiwibot says it has made more than 30,000 deliveries since it started in 2017.

Source: The New York Times

• As the coronavirus-led economic shutdown drags on, many investors have started counseling startups to have more than a years' worth of "runway" to avoid having to raise funding on poor terms.
• But VCs are split on how much startups should be socking away. Some have estimated 18 months oof reserves could suffice, while others say as much as 3 years' worth of runway is ideal.
• The different time frames depends on the age of the startup along with which industry they operate in. Younger startups typically have fewer overhead expenses, while older startups likely have more employees and pricey office leases.
• Also, those companies that may be able to resume work as essential services may need less cash if they are able to generate revenue.
• VCs are uniformly bracing for an economic slowdown, but the severity of downturn is still up for debate. 
• Click here for more BI Prime stories.

Startups are facing what could become the worst economic downturn in several decades, and VCs are begging them to take drastic measures to improve their chances of making it through. 

Most Americans who lived through the 2008 financial crisis will know that a savings stockpile or rainy day fund can mean the difference between surviving and thriving during tough times, but as recent studies have shown, many tech startups and VC firms don't have a similar first-hand experience; many have only known boom times and are now venturing into uncharted waters.

One thing VCs agree on is that startups need to quickly rein in growth plans — ideally as soon as yesterday — and start scrutinizing expenses. Anything nonessential should be cut or suspended indefinitely, headcount should be reduced, and pricey office leases eliminated if possible, all with the goal of extending a startup's "runway."

In Silicon Valley, runway refers to how much cash a startup has on hand to put against its operating expenses. If, for example, a startup has roughly $100,000 in monthly operating expenses and has $1 million in the bank, they are looking at a 10-month runway, assuming revenue stays roughly flat.

In the days before the coronavirus pandemic, a startup's runway dictated when it had to start looking for additional funding. Instead of cutting expenses, the popular solution was to simply put more VC money in the bank. This helped high flying startups like Uber and Airbnb expand at a breakneck pace — VC dollars kept pouring in and the companies remained unprofitable as they chased growth at all costs.

But now, VCs are saying that's no longer an option. Founders Fund general partner Keith Rabois said on a podcast recently that profitability is now being rewarded much more than high-growth. 

For startups that aren't profitable, that means hunkering down and ensuring there are enough reserves to last through the crisis.

So how long does the runway need to be? 

Many VCs that Business Insider has spoken to are advising their startups to have at least 18 months of runway. But some VCs say startups should have upwards of 3 years' of expenses saved up. 

The length of time can vary depending on the startup, one investor told Business Insider, pointing to the startup's age and industry as important factors. An early-stage company with a handful of employees and low-overhead costs might easily stretch a $500,000 seed check, whereas a growth-stage biotech startup with hundreds of employees, expensive hardware, and pricey office space might struggle to make tens of millions of dollars in funding make it through 12 months. Those that can't cut costs will be forced to fundraise with poor terms and risk the dreaded downround. 

"You can always easily dial back up the aggressiveness and risk profile if we get more optimistic visibility, but if you don't take action right away — to preserve capital, cut your burn rate, have fundamentally attractive unit economics, edit the product to make more sense in the new world order — if you don't do those right away, the opportunity to do those things and survive is probably lost forever," Rabois said in the April Talkshow broadcast.

Rabois is in the camp of pessimists, generally speaking, who think the economic downturn will not only drag on through 2020, but could eventually turn into an economic depression the likes of which could rival the Great Depression of the 1930s. He said that his VC peers are starting to rein in the freewheeling deal-making that has defined the last two decades of the Silicon Valley startup ecosystem, and are now treading cautiously. It's time that startups do the same, he said.

SEE ALSO: Lower valuations and a long wait for funding: Two top early-stage VCs dish on how they are counseling startups to withstand long-term economic uncertainty

Join the conversation about this story »

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Unlike most D.C. galas where the political powerhouses steal the spotlight, drag queens reigned supreme at this shindig.

Swift called on the White House to respond to her petition in support of the Equality Act, which would explicitly outlaw discrimination based on gender and sexual orientation.

The host made news of his own with questionable jokes, an eye roll and whispers of another wrong winner.

Tim Alberta's new book chronicles a decade of GOP recklessness, cowardice and excuses

Operators looking to deploy IPTV and Video on Demand will benefit from faster, lower-risk implementations that enable them to offer more services to users through a major partnership between Dune HD and Beenius announced today at TelcoTV2012. This will be demonstrated on the Beenius booth (number 105) at TelcoTV.

As part of the partnership, Dune HD’s advanced set-top boxes have been certified by Beenius and are now integrated with Beenius’ Beesmart open, flexible, and feature-rich interactive TV middleware platform. Together this provides an adaptable, integrated and best of breed solution to operators and system integrators, backed by the engineering expertise of both partners.

Octoshape announced a partnership with INVISO to deliver Internet TV contribution services throughout Latin America.

"At INVISO, we seek the most innovative and high quality products to serve our customers through the brands we represent,” said Jose Luis Reyes, Vice President for Sales and Operations, INVISO. “In the case of Octoshape, we found a company and a product that bring these qualities to our supply chain, sales and service.”

Octoshape offers an innovative cloud-based solution that provides instant infrastructure for the distribution of both linear and video on demand content. The Octoshape Infinite Uplink service provides point-to-point distribution of TV signals over the Internet for source signal acquisition to traditional IPTV and cable headends as an alternative to traditional methods like satellite and video fiber.

Trump’s attempted manipulations of official metrics degrade our democracy, economy and public safety.

There might not be room for creativity when everything “new” is crowdsourced.

A bipartisan tax proposal could signal a shift in the GOP’s business-first focus.

Democrats' message that not everyone is equally benefiting from the spoils of this economic recovery has resonance.

With the lockdown across nations, you are probably spending more time reading. Whether it’s for pleasure or for work, we’re here to help you fill your time with some reading material. These web design articles are not only about best practices, deals, and trends in the niche but also include feel-good stories that we all […]

The post Roundup: Web Design Articles May 8, 2020 appeared first on SpyreStudios.

Blast from the Past: This blog entry was first issued on June 30, 2014 and was reissued on March 28, 2020. As I re-introduce this piece, we are sheltering in place as is so much of the world. That means schools are closed in many places and teachers and parents are concerned about what is being lost from children's education. As with many of you, I've been trying to help protect children's learning during these fraught times. Which brings us to today's blog entry, this one about how I taught my own children to read at home.

Last week, I began a multi-part series on how I taught my daughters to read. My oldest daughter wryly replied to that entry, suggesting I could have saved a lot of pixels if I had just said that I hired a tutor…. And her son who just had his third birthday (and who did not read that entry) informed me that his goal for being three years old was to read words.

So far, I have explained the literacy environment, print awareness, and sight word teaching that were part of teaching my daughters to read, but phonics also played an important role.

Previously, I described how I taught my daughters about print, sight vocabulary, phonological awareness,

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